It’s the first news roundup of the new year—and I’m still stuck in the last one: I very nearly typed “2015.” Lots of good things happened since we last caught up—not least of which that Asymptote happily reached its Indiegogo goal (“Indiegogoal?”)! This means you can look forward to our fifth-anniversary celebrations in fifteen events happening all across the globe between now and April. And don’t forget: we’ve extended the deadline for our translation contest—scramble your materials and get it together by February 1st for a chance at literary wealth, fame, and renown!
You may be up to your eyeballs with literary listicles—best books of the year, etc, etc—but Esquire‘s rectified “80 Books Every *Person* Should Read” is a giant leap forward from its 100% male predecessor, and even includes some works in translation (but not enough, harumph). And at Vulture, 28 authors reflect on the books that changed their lives—I’m partial to novelist Alexander Chee’s pick, Cassandra, written by German writer Christa Wolf.
At Literary Hub, Adam Gopnik reflects on Charlie Hebdo a year later, in light of its distinctly French kind of satire, skepticism, and blasphemy. Speaking of blasphemy—in case you are interested, here are the Myers-Briggs personality types of famous authors. I’m a match with Plato—wonder how they snagged him to take the quiz…
Everyone’s favorite poet/translator/enigma (and Asymptote interviewee) Anne Carson has dipped her toes in fiction—available for reading at the New Yorker. And one of Russian literature’s greatest stalwarts, Leo Tolstoy, has inspired a bunch of lifestyle changes—but none so dramatic as those at the Church of Stapleton commune in England.
You might see some of them on the blog: the New York Public Library has made 18,000 high-resolution images available online. And Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez’s archive (which includes 24,000 pages of work!) will be digitized soon—but not soon enough!
But while archives appear, literal booksellers disappear: Lee Bo, one of the five big booksellers from Hong Kong, is missing in action—and suspected to be held in mainland China.